Kunio Nagatani
Kunio Nagatani '(長谷邦夫, April 7, 1937-November 25, 2018) was a manga author and critic, known for popularizing the concept of parody manga though best known for his association with Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro. Life and Career Nagatani was born in Katsushika City, Tokyo. After his graduation from high school, he had attempted to enter a pharmaceutical job but left after three months due to developing signs of tuberculosis while at work, opting instead to enter into manga as his profession. He had made submissions to Manga Shonen, as well as having become part of the East Japan Manga Research Group headed by Shotaro Ishinomori, along with the "Drop of Ink" doujinshi group. Because he often traveled to Toshima and would visit the others at Tokiwa-so, he is also often counted among the residents there even though he was not actually a mainstay, nor did he become a member of the New Manga Party. From around 1956 to 1964, Nagatani mainly published manga as kashihon, initially through Wakaki Shobo but mostly through Akebono. He joined Studio Zero at the end of this time, having assisted on Fujiko Fujio's ''Q-taro the Ghost ''as well as the group effort of ''Rainbow Sentai Robin. ''Previously around 1963, he had attempted to collaborate with other manga-ka as the group "The Seven Lucky Gods", though it did not fare well due to the living conditions of the apartment they stayed at. By 1965, Nagatani had become one of Akatsuka's assistants at Fujio Pro, acting as an additional "Brain" and idea man. He produced works for Fujio Pro such as The Numbness of Scatan, while also putting out his own individual works such as ''The Genius Pasuke in that same year. Nagatani also became relied on for coordinating interviews with Akatsuka and copying down his memoirs, being the one who constructed the first autobiography for him The Autobiography of Sheeh!: Osomatsu-kun and M''e in 1966. In 1969, Nagatani launched the series ''Kunio Nagatani Parody Theatre in COM magazine, taking on many popular manga at the time and parodying them, including Fujio Pro's own Bakabon series in the mix. Nagatani would note "I didn't ask for the permission to parody, as it wasn't my aesthetic". The follow-up of The Plagiarized World Masterpiece Collection would run in the same magazine the following year, and both would be collected under the title of ''Baka-shiki'' by Akebono in 1970. Nagatani would remain at Fujio Pro through the 1970s and 1980s, assisting or outright developing his own books to be published under the company name. He would also develop the manga Kama Sutra with Go Nagai in 1990. However, by 1994 it is said that he grew tired of Akatsuka's alcoholism and disputes arose, leading to him to leave Fujio Pro behind with little notice. After this, he did not return for The Collapse of the Sheeh! Religion one-shot, and put more of his focus towards writing books on the history of manga and becoming a lecturer on the subject at colleges across Japan. On April 30, 2013, he collapsed due to a cerebral hemorrhage and effectively retired from that point, being put in a nursing home while his eldest son took management of his blog to relay his condition. However, Nagatani's condition did not improve over the years of the nursing home admission, with him eventually developing aspiration pneumonia and needing to be hospitalized full-time. His son would relate the story in a final update to the blog on December 2, 2018, where he announced that his father had passed away on November 25th of heart failure. Controversies Nagatani was a contested figure among some others at Fujio Pro, and there are those such as Mitsutoshi Furuya who had left the company in part due to not getting along with him and feeling that he tried to position himself as the only one who knew Akatsuka and that could handle his work. Nagatani also having described himself as Akatsuka's "brain" and right-hand man in the group has been met with skepticism from readers who feel it gives him priority over other assistants who had also contributed notable parts to Akatsuka's career (Kenichiro Takai and Mitsutoshi Furuya among them). There are also those that feel due to Akatsuka having used Nagatani to relay his own history in his autobiography The Autobiography of Sheeh!: Osomatsu-kun and Me and to transcribe his words for some other books, that there may be debate over just how accurately Nagatani had conveyed his accounts of his life and some subjects to do with different series. Various statements Nagatani had made about Akatsuka in his autobiography The Men Who Shouted Love in Manga and the biography Fujio Akatsuka Genius Nyarome Legend had also come under fire from fans for downplaying Akatsuka's importance as a creator, as well as being insensitive to Akatsuka's alcoholism and his vegetative condition at the time. Nagatani had also pointed out an issue with Shogakukan putting two of his works (The Numbness of Scatan and the TV Magazine version of The Genius Bakabon) in the Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works DVD-ROM set, wanting to receive royalties for it as well, which also caught controversy. In the end, Shogakukan gifted Nagatani a free copy of the set. However, the most damning allegations by Nagatani that were repeated as fact for many years in some Akatsuka retrospectives, had to do with the idea that Akatsuka didn't value his own characters and works after a period of time due to his alcoholism. He had claimed that Akatsuka had entirely stopped drawing and writing his own works and instead left him to devise those concepts, and cited the 3rd run of Osomatsu-kun among them. This would be refuted later on by interviews with the newer staff at Fujio Pro that came in the later 1980s, particularly Minematsu, who stated that Akatsuka still had a hand in coming up with the plots of serializations. There is also physical evidence of Akatsuka having drawn drafts for manga during that time, while Nagatani's own work was relegated to the Nyarome learning book series and some other Fujio Pro-labeled educational books. Due to the fact that Nagatani did have heavy involvement in those aforementioned books, there exist Fujio Pro works that remain unlikely to see reprint even after his death; The 1970s TV Magazine run of Genius Bakabon (later "The Original Genius Bakabon") remains an outlier due to its luck in being associated with such a large title, and can still be seen to be represented in the eBookJapan edition. List of Works Kashihon *'''Five Minutes Before the Explosion (爆発五分前, Wakaki Shobo, 1957) *'City of Intrigue '(謀略の街, Wakaki Shobo, 1957) *'The Living Ghost' (生きていた亡霊, Akebono Publishing, 1957) *'The Oni General of the Antarctic' (南極の鬼将軍, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'Ghost Battlefront '(幽霊戦線, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'The Great Space Attack' (宇宙大攻撃, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'Don't Let the Murderer Escape' (殺人鬼をにがすな, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'The Girl of Shinigami-so' (死神荘の少女, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'Boy Sky King' (少年空戦王, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'Spider's Den' (くもの巣城, Akebono Publishing, 1958) *'Undersea Human Torpedo' (海底人間魚雷, Akebono Publishing, 1959) *'The End of the Battleship Yamato' (戦艦大和の最後, Akebono Publishing, 1959) *'Aircraft Carrier Sinking Strategy' (空母撃沈作戦, Akebono Publishing, 1959) *'The Divine Devil Sword '(神変魔剣, Akebono Publishing, 1959) *'Deadly Ball Strategy' (死球作戦, Akebono Publishing, 1964) *'Ninja Team '(忍者チーム, Akebono Publishing, 1964) *'New King' (新人王, Akebono Publishing, 1964) *'Corpse Baseball Team' (死体球団, Akebono Publishing, 1964) *'Three Crown Prince' (三冠王, Akebono Publishing, 1964) Series Some full serial information is incomplete and must be determined. *'The Numbness of Scatan' (April 1965-September 1968, Shonen Picture Report)- Reprinted by Akebono in an incomplete form, through 3 volumes. *'The Genius Pasuke' (1965-?, Weekly Shonen King)- Unreprinted *'Chibita Banzai' (June to December 1966, Elementary School 3rd Grade)- Unreprinted *'Kurukuru Apartment' (October 1968 to March 1969, Shonen Picture Report)- Unreprinted *'Fujio Akatsuka's Extraordinary Theatre' (1969, Weekly Shonen Sunday #17-27. Previous issues of the feature were handled by Akatsuka) *'Kunio Nagatani Parody Theatre '(April to December 1969, COM)- Reprinted as part of "Baka-shiki" by Akebono. *'The Plagiarized World Masterpiece Collection '(January to September 1970, COM)- Reprinted as part of "Baka-shiki". *'The Genius Bakabon (TV Magazine version)' (December 1971-October 1975, Monthly TV Magazine)- Re-titled "The Original Genius Bakabon" in its followup from November 1975-August 1977. Collaboration with Jin Kawaguchi, under the Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro billing. *'Nyagoro '(1970-1971?, Hopeful Friend)- Reprinted in a single volume by Akebono. *'Nyarome's Laboratory '(September to December 1978, Cosmo Comic)- Story. Art by Akatsuka and Fujio Pro, though the feature as a whole is simply credited to Akatsuka. Shorts *'Odenkushinosuke' (1965, Weekly Shonen King #32)- Story and Art. Unreprinted *'Iyami and Chibita's Tokaido War' (March 1967, Elementary School 4th Grade)- Story and Art. Unreprinted *'The Great Bakada University Cultural Festival' (November 1969, Deluxe Shonen Sunday)- Art portion. The story portion was by Takuya Yamaguchi. *'It's Tetsuwan Atom! '(March 1972, Mushi special issue for Fujio Akatsuka)- Story. Art by Akatsuka and Fujio Pro. Learning Books *'Nyarome's Fun Mathematics Classroom'- Story *'Nyarome's Fun Cosmology Classroom'- Story *'Nyarome's Fun Computer Exploration'- Story *'Nyarome's Fun Fun Go Language'- Story *'Nyarome's Fun Exploration of the Body's Mysteries'- Story *'Nyarome's Fun Sexual Education Classroom'- Story *'Nyarome's Fun Introduction to Go'- Story and art *'Nyarome's Big Blood Type Studies'- Story and art *'Nyarome's Fun Introduction to Shogi'- Story and art *'Doshite Books: The Mind and the Mystery of the Brain' *'Seven Wonders of Extraterrestrial Life'- Story and art *'Nyarome's Fun Introduction to Mahjong'- Story and art *'Nyarome's Great Nuclear Power Research'- Story and art *'Nyarome's Great Star Wars Research'- Story and art, though the cover art was by Akatsuka. *'Nyarome's Great Earthquake Research'- Story and art *'Nyarome's Great Meteor Research'- Story and art *'Comics Consumption Tax Strategy' *'The Newest Space Exploration of Genius Bakabon's Papa' Other Books * Fujio Akatsuka Genius Nyarome Legend (赤塚不二夫-天才ニャロメ伝, 2005)- Biography of Akatsuka, with illustrations by Nagatani. Characters designed by Nagatani for Akatsuka works * The cast of The Numbness of Scatan, minus Scatan himself. Sonota is prone to show up in Nagatani's own work, and he and Scatan both can cameo in Fujio Pro works that Nagatani had a hand in. * "Keko-tan of Hokkairo!" * The cast of Kurukuru Apartment References External Links * Nagatani official website: Manga University (Japanese) * Nagatani blog (Japanese) Category:People, Pets and Places Category:Fujio Pro